Make your own programmable electronic watch

The folks from Makerbot have published details on how to make your own electronic watch based around the Arduino platform. The benefit of this is that you can easily write your own sketch (code) and modify the behaviour of the watch quite easily. The face consists of two rings of surface-mount LEDS, to indicate the hours and five-minute intervals, plus another four LEDs to make up the minutes display.

Although the watch isn’t available in kit form, the designers have published all the PCB schematic and design files so you can have your own PCBs made up, and the Arduino sketch is available to get the watch operational. Here is an example in action:

From a quick observation this isn’t a project for the absolute beginner, however it is an excellent exercise in product manufacturing on a tiny scale – as you work through having the PCB made, part sourcing, assembly and programming. For more information visit the watch project page: http://wiki.makerbot.com/makerbot-watch.